Cancer Fighters

When I gave Tom, our landscaper, the go-ahead to plant some fruits, vegetables, and herbs in our newly landscaped yard, I had no thoughts of an "anticancer" garden. I was more focused on pitching in to prevent global warming while simultaneously reaping the culinary benefits of quick and plentiful produce.

Our edible garden was installed in late July, a full six or seven weeks before I saw an ad in The New York Times "Book Review" for Anticancer: A New Way of Life. Having just completed 10 months of cancer treatment, I was intrigued enough to buy a copy. Written by David Servan-Schreiber, a psychiatrist who stumbled onto his own brain tumor while conducting research on the prefrontal cortex, the book is built on the premise that cancer cells lie dormant in all of us. The author lays out the argument that diet and other lifestyle choices have a dramatic impact on whether those cancer cells stay undeveloped or blossom into deadly tumors.

While we've all heard the advice to eat more fruits and vegetables, Servan-Schreiber goes well beyond this premise. He relates the following anecdote about his own cancer treatment: After completing his course of chemotherapy, he asked his oncologist what he could do to prevent a relapse. His doctor replied, "There is nothing special to do. Lead your life normally. We'll do MRI scans at regular intervals. If your tumor comes back, we'll detect it early." As a research scientist, he was dissatisfied with this answer, so he set out to learn more. The resulting book gives scientific explanations and specifics of how diet, exercise and mood can all work to prevent cancer.

Similarly, when my treatment ended, I did not receive any detailed diet or exercise regimen. My oncologist prescribed Tamoxifen, which reduces estrogen, and he advised me that a low-fat diet helps to reduce incidence of breast cancer. But just as Servan-Schreiber experienced, my oncologist and I were more focused on detecting a cancer recurrence with MRIs and other tests, rather than on preventing one.

So when a patch of herbs and other edibles went into the ground at my house, I was not concentrating on growing foods to keep cancer at bay. But now I see the obvious connection. In his book, Servan-Schreiber names the five most common types of cancer and lists which vegetables are most effective at inhibiting their growth. Interestingly, garlic, leeks, scallions, brussels sprouts and cabbage are at, or near, the top of all five of the lists. The book also explores the cancer-fighting properties of such herbs as oregano, basil, mint, thyme and parsley. It must have been serendipitous when we put all five of these plants into the ground several weeks ago. In my mind, they were flavor enhancers, rather than cancer avengers.

I'm still making my way through this book, and as I do with every piece of health news, I'm reading it with a measure of skepticism. But you never know. Perhaps parsley tea will soon be the new pomegranate juice.

Fading Summer

I waited eagerly for the phone to ring, but John McCain never called me about my idea that I should be his running mate instead of Mrs. Palin (see previous blog post). It's hard not to feel that, despite all the glass ceiling rhetoric, the beauty queen is still the one being selected, but have it your way, Senator. I will be very interested to see how Mrs. Palin's polling numbers look in a week or two.

On the upside, not running for the vice presidency frees me up to do some harvesting and cooking and writing. Along these lines, we had some great food over the past few days, all of it organic and grown under our watchful eyes. This weekend, Dennis and I consumed:

• Thin slices of eggplant brushed lightly with olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, and seared over hot coals.
• A mixture of Italian parsley, lemon basil and oregano pureed with meyer lemon juice and oil and poured, as a marinade, over chicken legs about to be grilled.
• Sweet cherry tomatoes and a jalapeno or two sauteed together with a piece of sole and then wrapped in corn tortillas for fish tacos with a little kick.
• Tiny concord grapes, well chilled to enhance their sweet-tart balance.

You can see from this list that the garden was broadening and transitioning this week. We are finally moving away from our over abundance of red tomatoes toward a more purple bounty, evidenced in the eggplants and the grapes. Since the tomatoes vines have been undeniably (and mercifully) winding down, I secured my husband's (reluctant) agreement that they could go.

The moment that Dennis signed onto this plan, I gleefully shot off an e-mail to the landscaper, telling him to bring his crew back to our house ASAP to finish our project, work that this season's prolific tomato plants had literally obstructed. Once the tomatoes are finally put to rest, the landscaper will install some raised planting beds and a square patch of sod. The new beds will be great for all kinds of food and flowers, including next summer's tomatoes. As for the sod, the dog has been yearning for a small patch of grass to call her own. How can I deny her that?

It's no secret that I'm not a gardener, and I'm out on a limb with much of this. Along with a few successes, I've had to cope with plant death, too. Yesterday, I pulled out the sage plants that had withered. I've also realized that I absolutely must pay more attention to the lavender. I know that lavender thrives in Provence where the summers can be really hot, but this dainty French import has been threatening to expire from too much California sun. It seems to be calling out for extra hydration. Perhaps it wants an Evian.

Mostly, this gardening experiment has been proceeding through trial and error, but there's room for optimism. If the past weekend was any indication, home-grown produce will continue to make its way to my table. Now my question is whether raising backyard edibles somehow negates the environmental costs of the three Australian oranges presently cooling their skins in my refrigerator. I suppose I should abstain from the distantly grown, but we all have our indulgences, n'est pas?